bidding commercial accounts

[kathyskleening]

Hi, I saw this topic about bidding commercial accounts and the method used, but now I cannot find it. I think it was answered by Kevin and I remember it being quite lengthy. I want to print it out if I can find it. Please help! Thanks, Kathy's Kleening

[Kevin]

I have lots of posts on commercial cleaning. Please just repost your question.

Hopefully my answer will be the same as before.

[scobydoo]

Help with commercial semi-trucking professional corporate office bidding. The square footage is 12300 which will need to be cleaned 5 days per week. Standard cleaning of office spaces, bathrooms and kitchen area. Armstrong floors that need to be buffed monthly with stripping every 3 or 6 months.

Help please

[Kevin]

More information please. Post more detailed specs.

Real big difference also in "stripping every 3 or 6 months"

[scobydoo]

Well, the building is about 6000 sq ft Armstrong tile floors. Other offices around perimeter are carpeted. Bathrooms are tile, and so on. I need to quote cleaning without buffing and stripping Armstrong floors, so that would be 12,300 sq ft of normal DAILY cleaning, you know cleaning desktops, trash, vacuuming, 4 bathrooms with 3 stalls each (2 showers), dustmopping and mopping Armstrong floors, front entrance door glass (double door).

Is this enough info?

Let me know.
Thanks
Elaine

[scobydoo]

Kevin:

Also, I need help with Church cleaning bids. I think commercial bidding is very hard. I read something somewhere that like a 4,000 office building was $ 40.00 per cleaning. This seems very low for me. I have 6 commercial accounts already and am growing every day. My phone is ringing off the hook with bids for churches, offices and residential spring cleanings, etc.

I thank God for all he is giving me. Sometimes I am afraid that I will either bid too low and undercut myself or send out a bid too high and look foolish. I have a great cleaning crew and am confident in our work product. Residential pricing is a piece of cake for me to bid.......just need a little help with the correct way to bid a church and/or commercial. I know there are alot of variables, but something has to be a basis to bid, like price per square foot. No I am not is a super large city like Memphis or Nashville, so our pricing is my medium size town is moderate.

Thanks for any help you can give.
Elaine

[Kevin]

Elaine,
You should read this, then repost your question.
usacleaning.proboards30.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Commercial&thread=1149428649

We bid Churches as they are commercial buildings, you might want to offer a discount to your Church, seems like the right thing to do.. right?

[scobydoo]

Thanks for the infomation. That is basically how I have been thinking in my own pricing I have done in the past. I guess I just wanted to know about what the average say buffing per square foot rate is.

Thanks
Elaine

[Grizzly]

Bidding on commercial accounts is not that much different than bidding residential. You look at the time it will take to do the job, figure out your employee expenses, your materials all your expenses , add on some profit and that is the amount you charge. If they want a price per sq. ft. work back from the figure you calculated and give them a price per sq. ft. I have posted this many times before in greater detail, also, commercial profit margins are narrower, DO NOT UNDERBID TO GET JOBS!!!. If they do not want to pay what you figure you needed then walk away. You are not there to provide them the cheapest service in town, only the best service. Quality costs money.

Bill

[rrdelgado]

I have been offered to clean a community residential rec room/serving area plus restrooms. It houses about 50 adults. I was ask to give my bid and I dont know where to even start. I dont own my own cleaning business, I just started cleaning the area one day and did it everyweek after and got asked to offer a bid on it. The rec room has a full service kitchen with seating, large windows, blinds and industrial refrigerator. The hall and restrooms are seperate. They even want the laundry room to be added and I never cleaned that part. So how do I do this? Charge by the room, by the square foot? Any help would be cool. THXS.

[Kevin]

How long does it take you to personally clean the building? Are they asking for any special requirements, floor work, carpet cleaning etc?

[carycamryn]

My company was ask to put a bid on the local YMCA. After going over there to check out the specs, the Maintanence Manager informed us on what he wanted cleaned. I ask the Maintenance Manager if he knew the Square Footage of the facility since he is responsible for 6 YMCA facilities and he replied no. However I thought this was kind of bizarre. After getting all the JOB Specs from him, I drew up a bid however I gave him a Flat Rate per Cleaning since he does not know or won't tell me the Square Footage. Is this common? And is he being Cheap?

[Kevin]

Many people do not know, or understand square feet. More than likely he was not being cheap. He just didn`t know.

You can easily get the square feet of building by measuring yourself.

[Grizzly]

At any rate, the square footage doesn't really matter along as you costed the building out. Price per square foot is a convenient bench mark for property managers, building supers to get comparisons. If you costed the building out, added in materials and profit, your quote is good. Also, most building managers especially for office space will want a fixed rate for common area costs ie, public washrooms, hallways etc the will always have to be cleaned and another price for cleanable space, (usually in cost per square foot ) for other areas rented out, office etc.

Bill

[logan5127]

You did good. What I don't like is when they call you to do a bid like this and then give all your competition the measurements you come up with which makes it simple for them. I get alot of calls from commercial accounts that have no idea how many square feet they have. If i feel they are looking for low bid only then I will just give them a price without sq feet, if I think they are sincere in my bid I will give them square feet amount.